Familiar Faces
by Nuclearpeace24601
Summary: Naruto AU. Multi X-Over. Shinobi are followers of the strictest physical and mental discipline, harnessing chakra to reshape the world in their own image. But when 'superhuman' isn't good enough, there are always other powers to fall back on. An orphan nearly dies in a dark alley, but instead receives a choice that could shake the world: "Would you like to make a contract with me?"
1. The Lamb

AN: Everyone here should know the drill. I own nothing - I just like sharing ideas. I will consider myself to have said this at the opening of all chapters, because I don't want to steal credit, but I won't actually do it, because that's tedious.

…

**Chapter One: The Lamb**

Konoha: Early Summer - 54 HV (Era of the Five Hidden Villages)

Late Evening

…

As the sun began setting on the hodgepodge of Konohagakure, tinting its friendly patchwork of dark wooden homes and masonry government buildings with a palette of fiery hues, shop owners pulled down striped canvas awnings and locked their storefronts, content with the day's earnings and happily looking forward to going upstairs to enjoy a meal with family or off to one of the many scattered bars for a few drinks with friends and strangers.

As shoppers flowed away from the marketplace just to the inside of the city's south wall, ambling east and west along the curving streets cut along the gently curving hillside that led upward past several tiers of buildings to the citadel of the Hokage Tower, none would have said they were not proud of their home that alone of the Five Great Hidden Villages had continued to flourish in a world free of war. They would point to the civil war of Kirigakure, the tired economy in Sunagakure, the stifling fascism of Iwagakure, and the irreverent atheism of Kumogakure as irreparable weaknesses exposed in the very structure of Konoha's enemies, revealed when there were no bloody tides raised by war to cover them.

As those happy civilians walked down the wide streets of their home with eyes on the horizon and minds in the clouds, they did not look around to see who shared their happiness with them. They did not see the ragged, ruinous buildings that were never repaired in the terrible aftermath of the Kyuubi's sudden appearance on the edges of the city proper. They did not see the beggars, crouched in alleyways and owning nothing but the tatters they wore, who had lost their homes, families, and dreams on that same night. Some saw thieves and whores, with eyes roving through the crowds to mark where the next meal was coming from, but this only spurred the men and women to walk faster, glancing back over their shoulders with suspicion and scorn.

Among the many thus ignored, gazing enviously with hollow faces and sallow skin at the merry crowds, one young boy was still hoping to find a little bit of money before he gave up for the evening. He wound through knots of people, a bob of dirty blond hair moving along just above knee height, searching and waiting for just the right opportunity that he knew would… _there_. Quickly, pushing forward to slide into a dead end alley behind one of the Akimichi clan's restaurants the orphan knew would be occupied only by a dumpster and a cloud of flies, he waited for a gaggle of children only slightly older than himself - likely headed back to their homes above the stores in the marketplace - to approach him. When he heard the boisterous cadre just around the corner, he walked out into the street, directly in front of the four other children, and let the group knock him to the ground.

"Move outta the way, stupid!", snapped the most aggressive member of the group after a moment of confused silence as he regained his bearings. On the ground, the blond's bright blue eyes widened briefly before narrowing in anger and he responded, "I was here first, jerk!"

"Oh, like that's any better," snorted the boy in derision. Gaining confidence from the sneers he saw on his friends' faces, he shot down at the boy already dusting himself off, "No one here's worth anything, anyway. We just passed the E-rank examination at the academy, so we're genin now! Trash like you hav'ta show respect, or we'll kill ya!"

Eyeing the crew skeptically, the six year old spoke slowly, "If you're ninja… why aren't you on the roof jumping around like the rest of them?" Indeed, it was well known that Konoha shinobi liked to cut down on travel time by jumping from roof to roof, bypassing the wandering roads and fortified buildings to take the shortest route to their destinations, often to the ire of those who lived on the top floors.

"Shut up!", cried the leader as his face flushed comically. "The shunshin is a D-rank jutsu, so of course we can't start learning it before we're genin! The only way any of us could get around without walking is if we had familiars or summons to borrow techniques from, and none of us have anything like that."

"Actually," piped up one of the others, "my older brother borrowed a template for the basic binding scroll from the Shinobi Library and helped me summon a familiar from the fireplace a few weeks ago. He's already a chuunin, so he's got more clearance than us, and he wanted me to be safe on whatever D-rank missions take me away from where shinobi police are watching."

The others immediately turned and railed at their friend, yelling over each other, "What the hell, Natsu? Why are you just telling us now?", "That's so cool! Can you show us?", and "What does it do?" Leaving the three incredulous boys to pester the preening contract holder, the blond child slipped back into the crowd, smiling to himself as he weighed his new found frog wallet carefully in his left hand.

Sliding his eyes up toward the Hokage Mountain, where each of Konoha's past leaders had earned a monumental portrayal of their likeness as recognition for their power and success, Uzumaki Naruto allowed himself a small glimmer of satisfaction. '_You know_,' he thought to himself, '_today turned out alright_.'

…

'_I really should have known._' reflected Naruto as he bled out in a narrow dirt alley later that night, '_I really should have known to hide the money better._'

Overhead, a waning half moon threw a subdued suggestion of pale light as it struggled weakly to pierce a gray veil of wispy clouds, painting the world in dismal monochrome and inky shadow highlighted by the fierce orange glare of a distant street lamp. On either side of the alley, long abandoned ruins of wood and sheet metal seemed to close in, cutting the orphan off from any remote hope of rescue.

It was a lesson hard-earned in the slums of Konoha: keep your head down, your money discrete, and your knife close. To do otherwise was to attract the attention of desperate, dangerous men and women who had no qualms about slitting throats over less than a day's wages, and the newly beloved 'Gama-chan' contained nearly 5,000 yen - easily a day's earnings for any but the most successful protection rackets or drug dealers.

Of course, a knife was no help against the more dangerous criminals in a hidden village. Even though there weren't many outside of the military compared to the general population of Konoha, some people had contracted familiars with a corrupt shinobi's help or a careless genin's lost binding scroll and used the power they received to rule and intimidate those around them. It was an odious situation for the greater population of the slums, as all knowledge of fuinjutsu was jealously guarded by shinobi; it was extraordinarily unlikely that more than a few would be able to obtain a weapons to defend themselves with against their unbeatable tormentors within the next decade.

The man who had attacked and robbed him, Naruto noted with exasperated dismay, was one of these rogues. Beside him stood a peculiar tortoise, its dark metallic shell hollowed and displaying what seemed to be a large pan of embers through its grated surface, giving off visible waves of heat that floated off lazily into the night sky before fading from view. Following along the uneven red scales that guarded the creature's legs and neck, Naruto locked eyes with two glowing orbs that seemed to flicker yellow and white in recognition of his attention, then looked to the ground quickly and shuddered in discomfort. To interact with a spirit creature directly was a fairly uncomfortable experience for any who had no contracts themselves: many civilian philosophers argued that this was because these spirits repelled the living like water repels oil, and that to interact as with them so casually as to call them into the human world was to create an abomination against the natural order.

'_Not that it matters now,_' Naruto bitterly interrupted himself, '_I barely qualify as living myself.'_

Indeed, as the burn-scarred robber strolled back toward the street, chuckling softly and tossing his new wallet into the air, the exchange seemed well and truly concluded: money taken in hand, blood left on ground, and victim dying in the dark.

Only… the contractor paused and cocked his head slightly to the left, as if considering something he had forgotten. Turning back around slightly, he asked his companion:

"Hey, we're awfully close to the market, aren't we? Those assholes sure are picky about violent crime happening near their precious civilians… maybe we'd better move the body, just to keep anyone from looking into it. Whaddya think, Honoka-chan?

The tortoise answered only by sharply exhaling heavy, acrid smoke from its mouth, but this seemed to satisfy the man nonetheless, as he turned again and continued walking until he passed the corner of the alley and left Naruto's view. Curious as to his apparent change in fortune - '_His kick wasn't even that hard! I could still get to a hospital!' _- the orphan's gut dropped when he faced the familiar and realized the embers under its shell were glowing brightly as air was pulled through the grated openings, casting an ominous glow onto the dark walls to either side.

'_It wants to burn me alive!_'

Naruto was well and truly panicking now. "Help! Someone! Can anyone hear me?"

There was no response, of course. One does not live a long and happy life by going out of one's way to investigate cries for help in the middle of the night, and no one within range of the blond's admittedly weakening voice was feeling particularly brave or helpful. To be fair, no one within earshot genuinely fought for a happy life any longer, but all still harbored hopes of seeing the risen sun the following day.

"Anybody! Please! I don't wanna die!"

When it became clear that no one was coming, the child turned fearfully back toward his would-be executor, only to discover that it seemed to have paused and was waiting patiently for him to silence. Noticing his gaze, the eyes flashed brightly with malevolent pleasure for a moment, before an audible rush of air signaled a final preparation for its coming attack.

Terrified, Naruto rose quickly and pivoted so that he could run further into the alley and possibly find some shelter from the blast he was certain was coming; unfortunately, he had forgotten the broken ribs digging sharply into his chest, and collapsed back to the ground, losing his vision in a field of sickly wavering black and purple, landing face first so that he was soon coughing up a vile mixture of filth from the alley floor and blood from what was seeping through his bruise and into his lungs.

In the next instant before the tortoise familiar would have loosed its attack, Naruto heard a sickening shatter and the crackle of burning wood, followed by a gasp of air and a wave of dancing heat that singed his exposed arms and head, filling the already rancid alley with the sulfurous stench of burning hair.

Turning back in fear, Naruto took in the mangled form of the tortoise: shell rent open, embers dying slowly on the uneven ground, and the once impressive heavy plating of scales along its neck now blackened with the suit of an explosion and barely holding the creature's head to its body.

Sitting on a dented (and now burnt) steel trash can just to the side of the wreckage was a pristine, white… what?

It had a wide fluffy tail, easily making up at least half its length, the body of a small carnivore, and two long fur-covered tassels encircled by golden rings floating near its feet and leading back up to a pair of stiff, cat-like ears. It observed him carelessly, beady red eyes staring out from an unexpressive white face.

"Would you like to make a contract with me?"


	2. The Tyger

_It had a wide fluffy tail, easily making up at least half its length, the body of a small carnivore, and two long fur-covered tassels encircled by golden rings floating near its feet and leading back up to a pair of stiff, cat-like ears. It observed him carelessly, beady red eyes staring out from an unexpressive white face._

_"Would you like to make a contract with me?"_

…

**Chapter Two: The Tyger**

Konoha: Early Summer - 54 HV

Night

…

Silence once again descended on the alley as a shocked Naruto processed this question.

"It's okay to think about it for a while," the white spirit continued in a lighthearted tone as it leapt softly from its perch, "but you should probably decide on it soon if you don't want to bleed to death. At least one end of a contract has to be held by _living_ human if it can be any good."

Naruto blinked, startled by the direct reference to his tenuous position, before asking dazedly, "I'm not sure about that… aren't you supposed to wait until I summon you, or something?"

The spirit was not impressed by this argument. "Would you rather I leave you here? I could, you know… you only asked for 'anybody' to save you, and you offered no payment, like you were supposed to."

The child seemed vaguely disheartened to hear this, but responded apologetically, "I can't use chakra. I'm just an orphan… between having enough to eat and getting sick 'cause I live outside, I'm just not healthy enough to make any chakra. My parents were civilians, too, before they got killed by the Kyuubi, so I don't have much chance of getting better when I'm older."

The white creature stared at the boy for a moment while he pulled himself out of the mud to lean against the nearest house for support, then slowly said "Well… I suppose I could change that for you, given that you need chakra to be useful to me anyway."

Naruto's eyes had widened as he stared mutely at the small animal before him. The ability to produce and manipulate chakra, while not exclusive to ninja clans, was extraordinarily rare outside of them. To hear of a summon offering the talent to their contractor, especially so casually, was something the orphan had never even heard of in legends.

"What? But…"

"You need not concern yourself with the specifics at this point," interrupted the spirit, "There may be time for such things should you accept my offer. Simply know that such a thing is within my power, should you desire it, as is anything else you are likely to think of."

Having said its piece, the summon hopped back onto the trashcan it had appeared on and turned itself to face the skies as the clouds finally blew past the moon, allowing its faded light to illuminate the world below more fully. "And you may want to hurry. That man may be coming back to see why his familiar has yet to burn this place down, and he will be displeased when he finds you alone with what remains of it."

"That's not fair!", the child blurted out in horror, "You did that!"

"Did I?", mused the creature in its childish voice, "Perhaps so… however," and here it turned to look Naruto in the eye, giving him the same unpleasant jolt that had accompanied observing the footpad's tortoise, "you will be the only one here to blame when he arrives. And really, who would believe that a summon creature with no contractor appeared to freely perform a favor for you, a civilian orphan with no prospects, simply to disappear after a few minutes of discussion? That sort of thing… he would only get angrier if he thought you were lying, you know. Hurry, now; he can only get closer."

By this point, the blond was well and truly panicked. "I'll do it! I accept the contract!"

Despite never having changed its facial expression, Naruto received the distinct impression that the creature was amused at his sudden declaration. "If only all humans were so tractable… you have to make a wish before I can accept. What do you want?"

The blond started out to speak, but then paused. '_That's a good question,_' realized Naruto. '_A contract can last years, maybe even for my entire life! And it already told me that it can do anything I think of. I can literally have anything!_' The orphan was positively giddy at the turn his night had taken, '_I can wish for all the food I can eat, and to always have enough money and a place to sleep and for people to like me or… or…_' His thoughts spiraled along that path for awhile before petering out. '_If I word this right, I can have everything I want - I'll never run out of options and I'll never be backed into a corner like I am now.'_

Naruto composed himself, then, with all the dignity a six year old can muster, looked the cat-like creature before him in the eye and said, "I want to have the power to be somebody important… so that everyone will respect me, even if I have to make them!"

The spirit eyed him with consideration, then nodded slowly. "Thus is the agreement."

Under a pair of beady red eyes, Naruto cried out in shock and curled into himself as unpleasant sensations began assailing him: it felt as though he had been covered in a mat of writhing worms. He attempted to sweep them off from his body, only to have them either ignore his efforts or latch onto his arms, burrowing under his skin either way, piercing through muscle and flesh grab hold of each other, burning their way through his body like coarse rope sliding too quickly through his veins as they searched out more of their kind. As his vision slowly dimmed, curtained by hazy darkness, he felt the web of power knotting itself around his organs and muscles, tightening until he felt certain that he would be torn into a slop of offal and viscera on the ground beneath the eyes of the capricious spirit who had granted his wish.

Eventually, though, the terrible pain subsided. As it faded and the newly minted contractor took stock of damage, he noted with no small degree of surprise that he felt… good. The gash in his side where the thief's boot had kicked him was no longer bleeding, and seemed to be closing even as he watched it. His limbs, once atrophied and sinewy from poor diet, now looked smooth and flush with blood. Even his throat, raw from the last several seconds of screaming, felt unusually cooled and soothed by the night air. As he hesitantly rose to stand, Naruto felt a warm rush of energy and pleasure surging excitedly through his veins to help him complete the action, following the still-sore pathways that had burned in agony only moments before. Pausing to try to control the energy, he followed the ebb and flow back to a pool hanging low in his gut, seemingly fed by a constant trickle drifting like syrupy smoke down his spine.

His new familiar seemed to be eyeing him with interest. "Fascinating…", the feline murmured, "I would not have anticipated introducing a human to chakra to be so traumatic. Regardless, the contract is complete, and my business concluded. I will find you again later to collect on the debt you owe me. Is this satisfactory?"

Though uneducated, Naruto was not foolish. "This whole situation still seems kinda off to me… aren't familiars supposed to have fairly standard contracts they stick to? You haven't said anything about how long I could owe you, and I barely know what I got out of it! And why are you leaving? Aren't we working together from now on?"

The cat-like spirit hopped down from its throne for the final time, then cocked its head to look at him from the corner of one eye. "It is true that I have been repeating the same agreement for some time now; however, my last contractor was… disappointing. I feel obliged to search for new opportunities. The agreement we just made is only one of several experiments I am dividing interest between at the moment, and does not involve 'working together from now on', as you put it. This was a one-time bargain: a trade where you gained potential success in return for a favor. Fair, no? I may be able to reach a more permanent contract when next we meet, but that will not be for years, yet."

Rising from its seated position and reaching its front paws forward in a lazy stretch before standing fully, the creature continued, "I believe our business is done; you may call me Daisuke for now. Go, Uzumaki Naruto, and show your power to the world." And with that, the spirit faded out from the world like one of the wisps of cloud burning away in the moonlight above.

Left alone, the newly improved child blinked at the empty space for a moment, then rose and left the alley in a relaxed jog, already planning where he would be sleeping for the night.

Just after he had turned the corner, however, he ran headfirst into the man who had tried to kill him earlier that evening. Feeling his power drifting just beneath his skin, ready to support him in his escape, the blond jumped at his first impulse without hesitation. A split second later, the would-be murderer was clutching at a bloody nose and blinking back tears while his not-quite victim dashed down the street laughing and happily clutching the fat wallet he had stolen back from the man in the interim.

…

AN: Well, there goes the intro I've been sitting on. Feel free to throw a review my way if you spot a grammar error, some other sort of mistake, or if you just want to make a comment on what's on the page. I'm not really sure about my sentence structure variety and overall length for each scene, so if you want to help me out, be sure to mention your opinion on those. Otherwise, settle down and get comfortable; it'll probably be a bit longer before I get around to drafting up the next part.


	3. The Challenge

**Chapter Three: The Challenge**

Konoha: Early Summer - 61 HV

Early Morning

_…_

"Ugh, not again…"

"Don't let the brat get away this time!"

Laughing at the difficulty the patrolling ninja were having in capturing him, Naruto continued his run through the streets and alleys near the various government departments in Konoha's northeastern district. His third repetition of the final year at the academy was drawing to a close, and he was acting out a nostalgic farewell to the shinobi who had been helping him develop urban evasion and mobility skills over the past several months. The chuunin, of course, were not participating voluntarily, but how else could a clanless student of the shinobi arts hone his skills outside of the Academy? And really, building all the structures on a street from the same dark brick with so many better colors to choose from was just begging for a wandering artist to come by and redecorate a little.

But as any shinobi who had ever evaded arrest in a Hidden Village could attest to, there is only a very small window of time between the first chuunin giving chase to the first bored jounin joining in. Naruto knew, B-rank chakra reserves or not, that avoiding three chuunin in familiar territory would push the limit of his abilities; to drag out the contest long enough for jounin to join would invite failure.

'_And I can't get caught today,'_ the blond orphan thought to himself, '_they might make me late for the E-rank exam!'_

The genin dove into a side alley he knew crossed over to an adjacent street, creating an illusionary clone and quickly using the transformation technique to modify his appearance to that of a startled, unkempt man. It was be shoddy work, he knew, but the patrol would be predisposed to ignore the obviously homeless bystander and should attribute any unnatural tells to the shock of having a vibrant thirteen year old drop nearly bowl him over at speeds that would be frankly absurd from the civilian's perspective. It was a tried and true evasion method: the trailing chuunin would take a few precious moments to analyze the scene, and the tantalizing glimpse of their mark disappearing around the corner on the opposite end of the alley would spur them to move on without a second thought. Not once in all the time Naruto had been using this trick had any of the chuunin realized that they had left their actual target behind or that the illusion they were following had literally disappeared as soon as it was around the corner.

Grinning in smug satisfaction after a moment had passed and the chuunin had failed to double back, Naruto let his tenuous grip on the henge fade, stepped back out into the street, and began walking toward the academy… only to stop when he felt something push against his leg.

Looking down, Naruto saw that he had been accosted by a small black house cat, which had since moved on from butting its head against his leg to twining itself between his feet.

"Well, I guess I have time to stop for a while. You won't give me any bad luck if I pet you, right?"

Apparently in response, the cat looked to make eye contact. Naruto felt a jolt of panic when he realized that, one, the creature's glance communicated a sense of mischievous amusement that could only mean it was a contracted spirit, and two, that he had been introduced to a black cat familiar with a very similar color of yellow irises by the instructor of the class he had dropped into after his second failure of the final exam.

"Uzumaki Naruto… what do you think you're doing?"

Turning around, Naruto saw that he had been caught between his scarred academy instructor and the man's familiar. "Hehehe… Good morning, Iruka-sensei!"

The nineteen year old chuunin stared his student down, visibly unimpressed. "Naruto. Your final exam will start in less than an hour. Why is it that Kohaku and I find you needlessly complicating the lives of our village's security patrols, when you could be preparing for an event that will determine the next several years of your life?"

"Well… you see-"

"Stop. I don't want to hear it. Now come with me; this has to be sorted out so that patrol doesn't spend the rest of the day trying to avenge themselves for the all the times you've escaped them."

"_Allegedly _escaped them, sensei."

"Allegedly, yes. Now come on. If we hurry, we might get this sorted out soon enough for you to finish your exam today." The chuunin then grabbed his student by the arm and began dragging the boy back the way he had come. Just as he was about to sling the child over his shoulder and shunshin to his destination, however, his vision was obscured by a burst of smoke and his hearing by the displacement of air generally associated with a successful substitution. Turning around, he saw that he was now pulling a garbage bin containing a bucket of orange paint and a hastily scrawled message of 'See you in class!'.

The chuunin was silent for a moment, then released his hold on the metal bin and turned to his familiar, "I'd call that a textbook demonstration of the basic three. Whatever he's done to get his act together, it sure has worked out for him. Well, let's get get to class. It wouldn't do for the proctor to be late, now would it, neko-chan?"

With that, the spirit creature hopped up onto its contractor's shoulder, and the pair disappeared with a soft gust of air.

_…_

Only minutes after fleeing from Iruka, Naruto burst breathlessly into class, ignoring the many surprised stares the came his way, and claimed the last open seat at the desk he shared with Akimichi Chouji and Nara Shikamaru on the highest tier of the stadium-style room. Giving quick gestures of acknowledgement to his two friends, Naruto looked around the room to take stock of the situation. When he found that nearly half of the room's three dozen seated students were staring him down, he slapped on his widest grin and loudly proclaimed, "Aww, you guys didn't have to wait just for me! I've already heard all of this stuff!"

His words were met by a roughly even distribution of anxious laughter from the ones who felt unprepared for the test, death glares from the ones who had studied heavily and were ready to get on with it, and apathy from those who were more interested in how Iruka would deal with the disruption.

The last were disappointed when Iruka settled for shooting the blond a look of mild disapproval before moving on, "As I was saying, the E-rank examination is a cumulative test designed to include information you need to avoid reflecting poorly on Konoha and to efficiently undertake missions with the greatest chance of success. It will be split into three separate sessions that will evaluate your knowledge of theory and history, your proficiency with weapons and taijutsu, and your familiarity with ninjutsu and fuinjutsu. Each of these tests hold an equal value, and the class will be ranked in order of final score by the time you arrive tomorrow morning.

"The test is not easy: it is meant to create an accurate assessment of your potential to make rapid gains in small amounts of time and seek out additional knowledge independently. Those who earn the highest rankings will automatically will be entered by teams of three into jounin apprenticeships, as they will be the ones most able to benefit from the high demand, fast paced teaching style most jounin prefer. Those who fail the test can elect either to return next semester and retake the exam in a year, or move on to join to genin corps and continue in a slower paced classroom setting like this one. However, no one can repeat their final year more than three times, and instructors can recommend at any time that a student remove themselves from the program for their own safety."

The tanned chuunin stared at his class sternly for a moment, then broke out into an embarrassed grin and threw his right hand behind his head. "I didn't do too well on this test, myself, so don't feel like your career will end just because you end up in the genin corps! You won't advance as quickly, but there are opportunities that jounin sponsored genin almost never get. As a matter of fact, members of the corps generally live longer because of the safer missions, and can be involved in governing the village in ways that are closed to those who bypass the system.

At this point, he picked up the stack of tests sitting on the corner of his desk and handed them to the nearest student to start passing around. "There are thirty-six of you this year, but only three jounin have applied to take a team; this means that only twenty-five percent of you will have the opportunity of accepting an apprenticeship, which is actually a bit lower than the usual. Anyway…"

Iruka waited a moment as the last tests worked their way to the opposite side of the room, sitting on his desk next to his lazing familiar and searching the anxious faces staring back at him to be certain everyone had the materials they needed.

"You may begin."

'_Alright!_' At the sensei's call, Naruto flipped over the packet that had been passed to him. '_Let's see… Number one: In which year did Konohagakure become a city-state independent of Fire Country?_' Quickly jotting down his answer of '_2 HV_', Naruto began scanning the pages before him for the questions he was familiar with.

'_Number three: Which of the following is not a chakra nature humans can be born with?' _

_'Number six: Give the name of the Raikage known for fighting without a familiar, and describe the methods he used to make his techniques flexible enough to compensate for this.'_

_'Number fourteen: Rank the following common weapons in order of their ability to disable an opponent at a range of five to ten meters, and then justify your choice of best weapon.'_

And so it went. Question after question, paragraph after paragraph of written response, until finally… '_Number sixty: Describe the method the Yondaime Hokage used to destroy the Kyuubi no Kitsune. That's an easy one!"_ Happily twirling his pencil, Naruto bent over his test one last time and wrote, '_The Yondaime Hokage was a genius of fuinjutsu best known for creating a personalized branch of seals to summon himself from one location to another. On the night of the Kyuubi attack, the Yondaime used an experimental sealing technique to separate the demon's chakra into Yin and Yang, then transport the two some distance apart, allowing both halves to dissipate independently of the other's pull. Without chakra to tether to, a soul cannot exist in the living realm. The Kyuubi was ejected from this world, and because none of the Bijuu have ever had contracts to collect chakra from humans, it will never be able to return_._'_

…

Once the tests had been completed and collected, Iruka moved to write on the blackboard and began talking as he did so. "The second portion of the exam is the taijutsu and weapons technique assessment. There are two parts to this test: first, you will be randomly matched against another student and rated on your performance against them, and then you will engage me in combat in the same order, with the winner of the previous match going first. Once the last student has finished their match against me, you are free to take a thirty minute break for lunch or to prepare further for the next portion of the exam."

"The test will be carried out here in the classroom, on the demonstration stage where I am standing now. On my mark, a set of fuinjutsu barriers will activate to protect the walls, ceiling, floor, and audience from stray weapons. Once these barriers are up, the competitors will be sectioned off from the rest of the room until I have called the match."

Iruka stepped back from the blackboard, allowing his students to study their match-ups more closely. "After the match, both competitors will be sent down to the medical office for healing before their second bout. No one here should have the capability to cause damage severe enough to require a trip to the hospital, but all the same, please do not be more aggressive than you must to secure a win."

For his match, Naruto noted that he would be up against Kita Atsushi, the second son from a family of Fire Country merchants who had moved to the village from the west just after the Kyuubi's attack. The merchants' family had been surprised by the child's ability to utilize chakra, and while there may have initially been some suspicion of the wife having an affair, it was eventually released to the public that there were distant shinobi relatives on both sides of the family. The distrust this admission inspired in the local customers drove them away, and the family had been forced to move to Konoha to continue their trade. '_I can beat him, for sure._' Atsushi, he knew, was light on his feet and liked to dodge around outside of his opponents' range, then dive in with a pair of moon shuriken when he found an unguarded opportunity to strike. It was a poor matchup against Naruto's chuunin-level chakra reserves and two extra years of reach and fighting experience, but would be difficult to use as a showcase for talent on either side.

Having finished considering his opponent, Naruto turned his attention back to Iruka in time to catch, "…will be Kimura Arata and Tachibana Akane. Please come forward so that we may begin."

…

When Naruto returned from his break, he found that the class room was mostly empty. Iruka was grading the morning's written tests behind his desk, and a handful of students were talking quietly at the seats nearest to the door. As he began approaching them, he tried to catch up with the conversation:

"…ever taught by the Academy from memory, and you only get a grade if you can do them all successfully!"

"No way," cried another student, "I can't remember all of those! I barely know more than the basic three well enough to perform!"

"They won't really make us do sealing scrolls, right? Mine still come apart whenever I try to seal things that don't fit on the paper…"

It was at this point that Atsushi saw him, apparently having come back earlier than Naruto himself. "Sempai! You'll tell us what the third test is about, right? All sensei will say is to wait until another instructor comes in to take us to a testing room."

Never one to pass up being the center of attention, Naruto grinned. "Sure! All you kiddies gather 'round and listen to wise old Naruto tell you how to pass." The blonde could have sworn that he heard Iruka snickering under his breath while the first year students turned their wide, hopeful eyes to him, but the scarred teenager was stoic as ever and absorbed in his work when Naruto glanced up to challenge the nay-sayer.

Turning back to the gaggle of barely younger than himself students, Naruto began, "The last test focuses on basic ninjutsu and fuinjutsu. It covers all of the utilities from the last year, but it's weighted so that you can pass with just henge, bunshin, kawarimi, and basic sealing. If you want a good grade, you've got to know others like flameless cooking, the water purifier, and the owl-eyes techniques; if you know any techniques that weren't taught in class, those count for extra credit."

"But I thought shinobi couldn't do any techniques Academy techniques without a familiar," queried a young girl with eyebrows drawn down in consideration of Naruto's words, "The only ones that work for humans by themselves have to be designed by the user and supported with fuinjutsu tattoos, right?"

"That's only the really good ones. There're actually plenty of jutsu humans can do on their own, it's just that contractors usually get more powerful, less chakra expensive versions from their familiars. But then, sometimes contracting to a spirit creature makes it impossible to use certain techniques. That's one of the reasons you have to be really careful when you make a contract: so that you don't end up paying more than you thought you were going to or losing something you spent a lot of time getting better at."

The students thought about this for a moment or two, but more than one took their senior's knowledge with audible sighs of relief. Finally, a brown haired boy spoke up uncertainly, "But wait… which fuinjutsu are required? I really am still having trouble making sealing scrolls."

"Well… better luck next year?"

The child's face crumpled in despair.

…

"Good afternoon, Uzumaki-san. My name is Funeno Daikoku, and I'm conducting your ninjutsu and fuinjutsu review for the E-rank threat examination."

The two were in a much smaller side room, one of several used over the summer as a remedial classroom for anyone who wanted to repeat the final exam or a review room for genin who had made an embarrassing mistake on a mission. It was empty, now, with Daikoku standing by a skeletal podium stand in the corner with the only window and Naruto standing in front of a much lower desk equipped with ink and paper for basic sealing near the center of the room.

"As I believe you already know, I will read techniques from a list I have here and mark down how I judge your performance on each. If you need to use fuinjutsu to accomplish the task I have given you, you are expected to come to that conclusion independently; however, if you use seals to help do something you could have done with just hand signs, you will be docked points. I also can't tell you how you're doing at any time. And if there's anything you can't do, just say so and we'll move on, okay? You won't get credit, but you also won't end up like that kid who'll be stuck in the hospital for a week after he turned the cooking equipment he was supposed to be sealing into frag spray."

The heavily built man looked up to the ceiling thoughtfully for a moment, then focused again on Naruto. "That's about it. First on the list is henge."

This test, Naruto thought to himself several times as he zealously demonstrated the skills Daikoku called for, was his best chance to shine. His responses to the theory and history test weren't good enough to set him up above the norm, and his score on the taijutsu and weapons portion reflected his past of evasion and avoiding conflict as an orphan on the streets. But, as his sensei from his first failed class had said, it almost seemed like his body had been made to channel chakra in greater amounts and more efficiently than anyone he had ever met, and Naruto had found that single obliviously ironic statement so amusing that he had to laugh at himself for not thinking of it earlier.

He had to rely on making his ability clear in his grades to win a jounin apprenticeship. If he went to the corps, he would succeed, he knew. His position from last year, just a few slots under the lowest position open for an apprenticeship, marked him with potential to excel in the genin corps, with the very real possibility of becoming a D-ranked elite genin leading squads of E-rank genin within Fire Country before the year had closed.

But that was falling short. The most famous shinobi they learned about in history class were all genin from jounin apprenticeships, or jounin-sensei themselves. Great war heroes, famous assassins and thinkers and leaders, did not come from the corps. The Hokage had never come from the corps. _Respect_… members of the corps were respected, certainly, but with the charity and in the shadow of those who took it for themselves. Naruto didn't want that. Feeding on the fringes of another's hospitality? Hoarding casual acknowledgement jealously, when so much better could be found elsewhere? _Never._

As the examination drew to a close, Daikoku took a few seconds to scribble down a few more lines onto his student's score card, then said to the blonde, "Alright, I think that just about wraps it up here. I don't think this will apply to you since you apparently have no contacts in the corps, but do you have extracurricular ninjutsu or fuinjutsu to present?"

Surprised by the nod of confirmation he received, he briefly went over his paper with an eraser and said with a friendly smile, "Well, I guess that shows me for making assumptions. Go ahead whenever you're ready."

Naruto took a deep breath, seized control of the biggest chunk of chakra he could pull together after having already performed his full repertoire, and threw everything he had into the technique he had been working on just for this situation.

_"Kage bunshin no jutsu!"_


End file.
